Florida police mounted a massive manhunt in search for an illegal alien accused of stabbing his girlfriend and her daughter to death in a shocking and brutal crime.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister described an “extremely gruesome scene” in a very emotional media briefing on Wednesday evening.
Chronister said police swarmed a mobile home at about 5:30 p.m. after a roommate found the bodies of a woman and her daughter on Wednesday in the city of Dover. He said they found the woman in a pool of blood behind the mobile home and the girl, who was later found to be 4 years old, dead inside the home.
A neighbor said they had heard a woman scream earlier that day but didn’t make anything of it because it was a regular occurrence.
“I am taken back by the level of pure evil that has transpired when our suspect brutally murdered an innocent woman and a young child,” he added.
Chronister initially said both died from “blunt force trauma” and described how they found a bloody handprint left by the woman as she tried to get away. He later clarified that they had found stab wounds on both the victims.
Police identified 31-year-old Angel Cuz-Choc as a prime suspect and said that he had fled from the scene into the strawberry fields outside of the mobile home. They employed aviation and K-9 units in their search for the man.
On Thursday, police announced that they had captured Cuz-Choc.
“This murderer who brutally murdered and committed this heinous, vile and unthinkable crime against these two innocent victims is under arrest,” Chronister said to WTSP-TV.
They identified the victims as 36-year-old Amalia Choc de Pec and her daughter Estrella Pec Coc. Police do not believe the daughter is the biological child of Cuz-Choc but instead say the girl’s biological father is still in Guatemala.
Investigators say that the man tried to ask for help from friends but that they refused. Body camera footage showed a K-9 officer finding Cuz-Choc first before he was arrested.
Police said that the man allegedly confessed to the murders. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, but police say other charges are pending.
Chronister said that Cuz-Choc was in the country illegally and that the three had come the U.S. several months before the brutal murders.
Here’s more about the gruesome crime:
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